Re: Precautionary principle

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

Hi Ted:


I am posting this because I think it may be of interest to others (hope I'm 

right).


I believe you can get the whole study by writing to Tanya Tengs at the 

Harvard School of Public Health, or get her current address from the RISK 

ASSESSMENT article (RISK ASSESSMENT is the peer-reviewed journal of the 

Society for Risk Analysis).


The article describes the methods very well.  It was strictly an economic 

study, and the "year of life saved in the U. S." included some kind of 

average earning power during that year, and is actually "person-years of life 

saved." Since measles, smallpox, polio, etc. are fatal to many children, the 

trivial cost of a vaccination (free to maybe $25) compared to $20,000 for the 

year of life saved (or even $10,000) multiplied by the number of children 

gives a "negative cost" (or positive financial benefit, if you will).  By 

comparison, the cost of seat belts in school buses is $2800 per year of life 

saved, because relatively few children die or receive life-shortening 

injuries in school bus accidents.  The reason the cost of pollution control 

is so large is that cancer is largely a disease of old age, so relatively few 

"years of life" are involved.


The article is very good.  The authors even take the school bus example and 

point out that there may be other reasons for putting seat belts on school 

buses -- that the study couldn't measure  the emotional cost of a child's 

death.


I cannot resist adding that one problem with application of the 

"precautionary principle" is that in the current age of victimhood and risk 

aversion, nobody wants to let go of that principle even when the science and 

evidence contradict it.  If you want to read a really excellent in-depth 

discussion of this kind of thing, I recommend the article on dietary fat in 

SCIENCE, March 30, 2001.


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com